HECTOR — The Hector School District will find out in a couple of weeks whether the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) added it to the state's fiscal distress list.

"I am very suspicious we will be put on fiscal distress," Superintendent Walt Davis said.

Davis will meet with the ADE in Little Rock on May 8 to find out the district's fate.

"In the school business, it's hard to increase revenue," Davis said. "So you have to look at cutting costs."

In February, Hector was added to the fiscal distress watch list. Davis — during a called meeting with the school board, parents, faculty and staff — listed a loss of students, loss of assessment and failing to transfer money from the operating budget to the building fund for three years as the main causes.

"We had to move almost $350,000 at one time," Davis said. "In our situation, that created a pretty big hole."

The district responded by hiring Norman Hill of Enterprises LLC Educational Consultant Services to help it through its financial woes.

Hill said the financial planning is the same whether Hector is on the fiscal distress list or the watch list. He added it would take approximately two years to correct problems if Hector is put in fiscal distress versus one year if it stays on the watch list. Once on the list, the district has to get state approval for all financial decisions, slowing Hill's process.

Davis and Hill will submit a financial plan to the ADE that will be due in the weeks following the May meeting.

"We're in the process of making the corrections that need to be made," Davis said.